CBC Radio cleared by CRTC to go back on the air in Ontario's Waterloo Region

TORONTO - CBC Radio can now officially go back on the air with local content in Ontario's Waterloo Region.

The public broadcaster launched a station in the southwestern Ontario area in March but had to pull the plug earlier this week and air content originating out of Toronto after it was revealed that it did not yet have its broadcast licence from the CRTC.

A satellite dish sits on the roof of one of the CBC studios in Halifax on April 4, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

The licence, which runs until 2019, was approved Thursday.

"It was certainly not intentional for us to be broadcasting without that licence ... it was a very regrettable oversight," said CBC spokesman Angus McKinnon, who did not elaborate on how the mistake happened.

"We set the date for the launch, folks were organizing the launch of the station and we went ahead with the launch of the station without having finalized that regulatory piece of the puzzle, which was clearly an error on our part and as soon as we became aware of the situation we acted as quickly as possible to take the signal off the air."

CBC said the station would resume broadcasting local content on Friday morning.

CBC's licence application to the CRTC said the channel would include content from its Radio One network and at least 12 hours and 30 minutes of local programming each week.

The application was originally filed last June.

CBC Radio's Waterloo Region branch continued to broadcast online while waiting for the CRTC application to be approved.

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